Presentations. Oh dear. So often sales presentations stumble
severely, focusing too much on the supplier and not enough on the customer.
I’ve seen numerous examples of companies forcing their
sales teams to use the same
presentation template for all of their accounts. At the heart of the concept is
a good idea: customers *should* have a consistent experience of dealing with
your organisation. There *should* be a distinct feel to your team, as
differentiated from your competition.
However, what tends to happen is these good intentions disintegrate into a
generic, self-oriented document that gives little thought to the specific needs
of the actual client in question.
Last week I had an interesting conversation with one of our clients, who wanted to make sure that his salespeople were presenting solutions in a
consistent way to all of their accounts. This makes some sense, of course. But
the execution was terrible, and I’ve seen this before.
The *required*presentation deck ran something like:
- A cover page featuring their branding, their logo, their colours, and a small mention of the client
- Their business, their background, and where they are based
- A history of the brand, including the evolution of the logo (!)
- A map showing their sales offices around the world
- A map showing their production facilities around the world
- A photograph of their heritage-listed corporate headquarters building
- Etc…
In this standard deck, it was at least 8 pages before it got
to the key business issues facing the account. Even worse, the client had been
running training programmes to make sure that everyone delivered the first 8
pages exactly the same way!
While consistency is clearly important, you need to make
sure that your salespeople are starting with the situation from the *customer*
perspective. This is especially true if you have senior people in the audience.
In the example above, you will have lost your senior attendees well before you
even got close to the value that you can bring to them.
To be successful, start with the situation, and the business
impact it creates. If your audience wants to talk about you – and they probably
don’t – you can include your history, locations and a photo of your offices in
the Appendix, in case it comes up.
Oh – and I’ll comment on this specific issue in later posts –
you also need to *trust* (and upskill!) your sales team enough that they
don’t need a script. It is possible to be both customer-centric AND consistent
to the brand, but you need your team to be capable of executing.
So what should YOU do?
- Make sure that all presentations, proposals, agendas, etc. start with the customer issue, not your organisation. From *their* perspective, what is the issue? Why should *they* care?
- Push your sales team to tailor the standard content to address the specific needs that have come up in conversations and research to date. If parts of the standard discussion aren’t relevant, allow your teams to not over them.
- Coach your teams to focus on the things that really matter to the *account*, not to you.
- Practice the core components and elements of the sales presentation so that it feels natural, and feels like something that you would say. You shouldn't be reciting a script!
In my experience, one of the hardest things I have found is to get someone to focus on someone other than themselves (if they don't already have that skill). To get people to see someone else's needs.
ReplyDeleteFor example, with process improvement in my own business, I'll find a CEO talking about his own needs while being oblivious to the needs of their staff. For example, they will request a blog for themselves while their staff burns out under some horribly inefficient process/system/infrastructure. They can see their own needs, but not those of their staff.
In changing the sales process/focus so that sales people focus on the needs of others, it strikes me that sales people will need this skill to do so. And that those who can will do better than others.
My question is, is it possible to train someone (like a sales person) in this skill? To get them to see others needs?
What sort of approaches work?
Or is the question irrelevant - as salespeople already have this skill and those who don't, don't last as salespeople?
It's a great query, David. I'm glad to see you mention that sales people need the *skill* to focus on the needs of others, because I think it is just that: a skill. And it can be taught, though of course some will be naturally better at it than others.
ReplyDeleteOne approach that I find works is to coach your salesperson to think about the KPIs, measures, and/or metrics that their contact is measured on. In their annual reviews, what does your contact talk about to prove that he/she should get a raise? This helps the salesperson to think about the situation from someone else's perspective, and it can really help.
I also asked Dana Eisenstein what she thought about David's query. She's the Director of Mindscape, an organisation that helps companies and people build resilience, flexibility and awareness (I encourage you to find her at www.mindscapeconsulting.com.au!).
ReplyDeleteShe comments:
Although it is certainly easier working with people who have the sales/ service mindset, I believe anyone has the potential and can be trained/ coached!
Sometimes its as simple as lack of awareness that leads people being purely driven by self-interest.
So yes, it *is* possible to develop the capability!
I really like your idea about having the salesperson ask about a client's kpis. It's a very concrete way for everyone concerned.
ReplyDelete